9 ways to improve the Post-9/11 GI Bill - Air Force tuition assistance, military tuition assistance, G.I. Bill, military friendly colleges - Air Force Times

9 ways to improve the Post-9/11 GI Bill

The sweeping Post-9/11 GI Bill has made college affordable for more than 275,000 veterans, service members and even some of their family members since it began last August.

But a series of issues have kept the landmark program from realizing its full potential, two key veterans organizations say.

Overly complicated benefits formulas, gaps in coverage and perceived inequities in some specific benefits may be keeping some veterans from tapping into their benefits.

The Veterans Affairs Department estimated in 2008 that 525,000 people would use the new GI Bill in its first year.

But less than half that number — about 248,000 students — actually received benefits during the fall 2009 and spring 2010 terms.

To add to the mystery, about 425,000 people have taken the first step of becoming certified as eligible to receive benefits — meaning that 42 percent of those people have yet to follow through by enrolling in classes.

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and Student Veterans of America — two groups representing the new generation of veterans at whom the Post-9/11 GI Bill is aimed — say they believe certain changes will knock down some of the barriers that may be discouraging people from using the generous new program.

Here are some of their ideas:

1. Give active-duty members the book stipend.

Active-duty members may use the Post-9/11 GI Bill, but they — and their spouses who use transferred benefits — may not receive the program’s monthly living stipend or its $1,000 annual book allowance.

Not providing the living stipend makes sense; service members already live in military housing or receive an off-base housing allowance, and a spouse using transferred benefits is assumed to be living with the member.

But denying a book stipend to active-duty members and spouses is unfair, since they must buy textbooks just like veterans, said Tim Embree of IAVA.

2. Provide living stipends for distance learning.

One of the big benefits of the new GI Bill is the monthly living stipend paid to students taking enough credits to be considered more than a half-time student.

While it’s generally understood why active-duty members and their spouses using transferred benefits don’t get the living stipend, many complaints have been heard about the fact that stipends also are denied to people enrolled in distance-learning classes unless they also take at least one on-campus course.

“Distance learning is a highly popular form of education for veterans,” said Tom Tarantino of IAVA. “Veterans attempting to earn a degree through distance learning should be entitled to the same benefits as veterans attending traditional brick-and-mortar institutions.”

Brian Hawthorne of SVA called the policy “specific discrimination against distance education programs.”

One reason the Post-9/11 GI Bill denies living stipends for distance learning is concern about how to set payments.

Monthly stipends for those taking a course load of more than 50 percent are paid based on the military housing allowance rate for an E-5 in the ZIP code where the campus is located. For distance learning, payments based on either the location of the school or the residence of the student could lead to students — or even schools — moving to more expensive areas just to draw larger living stipends.

A compromise taking shape in Congress would make distance-learning students eligible for living stipends under the same conditions — carrying a course load of more than 50 percent and excluding active-duty service members and their spouses — with payments based not on the school’s location or the student’s residence while taking classes, but rather on student’s address at the time he files for benefits.

3. Cover more vocational and technical courses.

For all that the Post-9/11 GI Bill does to pay for a four-year college education, it’s of limited help for vocational and on-the-job training and apprenticeships. For these programs, veterans need to use the Montgomery GI Bill, which doesn’t pay living stipends.

“Many veterans do not want to go to a four-year institution when they return home,” SVA’s Hawthorne said. “Instead, they would like to be able to go into a vocational training program to gain valuable technical skills to seek employment.”

For many veterans, vocational training is the fastest path to employment and a way to put a military-learned skill to use, Hawthorne said.

Current restrictions are often hard to understand. For example, the Post-9/11 GI Bill — including the living stipend — can be paid if someone is taking a class at a college or university but not if he is taking a vocational course from an institution that does not offer a degree.

“Veterans attending vocational schools should be entitled to the same Post-9/11 benefits as a veteran attending a vocational program at a community college,” Tarantino said. “We also believe veterans in apprenticeship and OJT programs deserve a benefit under the Post-9/11 GI Bill.”

About 16,000 people using GI Bill benefits today for vocational courses would benefit from a change in the rules, IAVA notes. Several bills are pending in Congress to make such a change, including HJ 3813, the Veterans Training Act, sponsored by Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa.

4. Expand use of the $2,000 test reimbursement.

A key feature of the new GI bill is a one-time payment of up to $2,000 to cover the cost of a licensing or certification test.

But preparatory courses also should be covered, said IAVA’s Embree. The new GI Bill “will cover a bar examination test but will not cover the bar prep course that nearly every law student takes to prepare for such a rigorous examination,” he said.

Multiple use of this benefit also should be allowed as long as payments stay under $2,000, Embree said. Under current rules, for example, someone taking the bar exam in Nevada would get $1,225, but a future auto mechanic facing three $23 certification tests for brakes, engine repair and automatic transmission repair would get only $23, not $69.

A bill pending in the House, the Test Prep for Heroes Act, would expand the test and licensing reimbursements. The bill, HR 3848, is sponsored by Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Fla.

5. Make family transfer rights retroactive.

People who separated or retired from the military before the Aug. 1, 2009, launch date of the Post-9/11 GI Bill missed out on one of the new program’s most unusual aspects: the right to share unused benefits with family members.

Transferability of benefits, included at the Pentagon’s insistence out of concern that the generous new program might lead people to leave the military, wound up being limited to people who served after Aug. 1, 2009. That excludes thousands of people who earned benefits for themselves but can’t share them with family members because they separated before that date.

What strikes some as especially unfair is that the Pentagon relaxed eligibility rules so that people who were still in the service on Aug. 1, 2009, but were nearing retirement do not have to serve the additional four years normally needed to earn transfer rights. No such break was given to those who had earned benefits but retired earlier.

“These benefits have been earned by some of our longest-serving veterans,” Hawthorne said, but they have thus far been denied.

A bill pending in the House, HR 3577, would give anyone eligible for Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits who retired with 20 or more years of service since Sept. 30, 2001, the right to transfer benefits to their spouses or children.

6. Give full credit to all National Guardsmen.

In two ways, National Guard members don’t get the same credit toward Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits as service members.

Guardsmen on full-time active duty under the Active Guard and Reserve program or mobilized under state authority for natural disasters and homeland security missions cannot count that service as credit toward earning Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits.

Two bills are pending in Congress to provide credit for this type of service, HR 3554 and S 1668. Both would make the credit retroactive for service since Sept. 11, 2001.

7. Allow switching between programs.

Many students are eligible for more than one GI Bill program, and while it is possible to use a little of one and a little of another, the decision to start using the Post-9/11 GI Bill is, by law, irrevocable.

Hawthorne said this limits options for veterans who might switch to the Post-9/11 GI Bill to attend college but then decide college isn’t for them and want to take vocational training.

Selection of the Post-9/11 GI Bill “should not be an irrevocable decision,” he said. “Until the current system of confusing and redundant educational benefits is altered, veterans will continue to be eligible for multiple [programs]. Selecting the Post-9/11 GI Bill and then discovering that it is not the best solution for a specific educational program should not eliminate that veteran’s options.”

8. Simplify tuition benefits to increase money for private schools.

Calculation of tuition and fee payments for students attending private colleges or universities is confusing and can result in students receiving less money — sometimes far less — than those going to four-year public schools.

Students in private schools or taking graduate-level courses are promised benefits up to the in-state cost of tuition and fees for undergraduate education for the most expensive four-year public institution in that school’s state.

But what’s not immediately apparent is that those are two separate calculations — one for fees and one for tuition. If the public school has low tuition and high fees but the private school has high tuition and low fees, the private-school student can end up getting far less in total education payments than a public-school student.

One possible solution would be to combine tuition and fees into a single cap for each state, so that if the two payments total $10,000, then a private-school student could receive up to that amount. A second, more radical solution would eliminate state caps altogether and set a national baseline for tuition and fees for all private schools.

IAVA favors a national cap, saying it would “abolish the messy state-by-state cap system and replace it with a simple, generous and equitable benefit.”

9. Provide Yellow Ribbon payments based on need.

The Post-9/11 GI Bill contains a provision aimed at reducing out-of-pocket costs for students when tuition exceeds their state’s cap. Thousands of colleges and universities participate in the so-called Yellow Ribbon program, in which VA matches dollar-for-dollar a voluntary reduction in tuition made by a school.

By law, Yellow Ribbon scholarships are made available on a first-come, first-served basis. Sometimes there are more scholarships than students, but there are also instances when scholarships are too few, so some student veterans lose out.

In such instances, SVA believes scholarships should be handed out based on financial need rather than who is first in line.

Too few scholarships creates “considerable angst within the student veteran population as to how the school will determine which veterans will receive this extremely generous earned benefit,” Hawthorne said.

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